


The End of Everything

by mothwhisperer



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Freewood - Freeform, M/M, One Shot, Short One Shot, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 13:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19021105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwhisperer/pseuds/mothwhisperer
Summary: Surviving the zombie apocalypse gets complicated when Gavin gets bit. It's the end of everything and the beginning of telling the truth.





	The End of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I'm BACK! Guess who just finished her final-year assignments and is graduating in a couple of months? THIS GIRL. My last update was almost three years ago, with notes that read "University is hard as it turns out". Well, it has been, and I've had no time to write. BUT, it's finished now, and I'm trying to get a job, but I also want to start writing again. And yes, that means continuing 'Build It And Love Will Come', but no promises on how often I'll manage to upload. Continuing that mammoth of a fic is going to mean reading the whole thing, re-reading all my notes and plans, and doing some serious work. So, in the meantime, I'm announcing my return with this short one-shot I wrote eons ago and just completed with a little epilogue. I hope you enjoy!

All Ryan remembers of that initial moment is the scream.

It tears through his memory like it tore through his heart when it happened. When it all, effectively, ended.

He turns, forgetting for a moment the walking corpse shuffling ravenously towards him, and stumbles.

“No.”

It wasn’t screamed or gasped through tears it was a simple, shocked insistence that this cannot be. This is not allowed. But it’s happening right there in front of him and Ryan has to force himself to turn away and behead the rotting mess behind him. He whirls back round immediately, tripping over his feet in haste. “Gavin-” Now the tears are coming, the lump in his throat, eyebrows practically pressed together in fear.

“Oh no, oh- Ryan- Help me, I didn’t think- Flanked me-” Gavin sputters, accent mangled by his breathy gasps and uncontrollable sobs.

The zombie was dead, of course. Gavin’s hatchet stuck out of its caved-in skull but it didn’t matter because it was too late, and Gavin was cradling his arm and Ryan could see the bite, the oozing red tear, the indentations of rotting teeth. No denying it.

“Shhh” Ryan manages, grabbing Gavin’s shoulders, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, and looking into Gavin’s eyes Ryan could see he knew this, even as they grew steadily more bloodshot and tremors worked their way into Gavin’s limbs. They didn’t have long.

Then again, they hadn’t had enough time for anything since this whole, bloody apocalypse began and Ryan now, of all times, found himself thinking of all the times he should have held Gavin’s hand. Kissed him, even. Ryan had been watching those lips for months, but brushing fingertips and hungry gazes are about all you have time for when the living dead haunt your every move, and Ryan regrets every lost moment.  Especially when it all amounts to this.

The fragile hope that sometime, sooner or later, this will pass and there will be time to catch up with everything, was gone. This was all they had, now: a few minutes in the midday sun at the side of the dusty track they had hoped against hope would lead them somewhere that was somewhere, and not another ghost town, populated by memories and hungry corpses.

Ryan lets their foreheads touch and releases a long, tired sigh. Gavin, shakily, does the same.

“I love you,” Ryan whispers, like it isn’t the first time he’s saying it. He knows Gavin knows. They’ve both known for so long.

“Ryan I’m so sorry I-” Gavin begins. Ryan kisses him. It’s quick, chaste, innocent, pulling away even before it really happened. Gavin follows Ryan’s lips with his own.

“I love you,” Ryan repeats, firmer, searching Gavin’s eyes for reciprocation.

“I love you too.” And that’s all he needed. Gavin is greedy, Ryan is sorry. They kiss. Passionately. Hands wander - Gavin wants to feel those arms around him if it’s the last thing he feels (which it will be, he reminds himself) - until they’re both crying too much to continue and Gavin splutters out, panicked, “I can’t see you.”

Ryan laughs emptily. “Stop crying, then.” Gavin only sobs some more, spasms wracking his small frame. Caused by more than just emotion. He pulls his gun from his belt and pushes it against Ryan’s chest and Ryan shakes his head but takes it all the same. He has to.

“Don’t forget me, okay?”

“Gavin, I couldn’t if I tried.” They smile at each other. Gavin closes his eyes.

“I- I’m ready.” He hears the safety click and he expects cold metal against his scalp but instead Ryan is kissing him again. Softly, slowly, goodbye. And then the lips are gone and Gavin forces himself not to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to imagine Ryan closing them for him later.

“I love you.” Those words again, Ryan’s voice close to his ear, warm breath against his neck, and Gavin knows the reply will mean death. He breathes in and it’s all Ryan. He hesitates, and it feels like an eternity. The warm breath is gone and Gavin can’t feel the gun but he can sense it between them and he knows their moment of intimacy is over. Everything is over.

“I love you too.”

 

* * *

 

Ryan stood over the grave in silence, hoping its deep enough to ensure the body won’t be dragged up by ghouls hungry for the last traces of Gavin’s humanity. Eaten by worms, eaten by zombies, the difference was slight, but significant. He shouldn’t cry; survival required hydration, and Ryan didn’t know where his next source of water was going to be. He cried anyway, because Gavin deserved that. Gavin deserved the tears of fifty people come to mourn him, but those people were already gone: lost or dead.

Ryan cried for Gavin, cried for love of Gavin, cried in mourning of everything they could have been, cried for the time stripped away from them. Alone in the becoming-cold dusk, five more minutes together would have made Ryan happy. He paused a moment longer, then wiped a dirty and callused through the glistening tracks left by his tears, shoved the spade into the earth next to the grave, and turned away.

The dirt track stretched on into the oncoming darkness, seeming so much emptier than it had earlier that day. Before, they had been chasing an impossible dream; wading against a tidal wave of emptiness, Ryan made his way away from where it lay.


End file.
